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Equifax to acquire Kount, a fraud prevention & digital identity solution provider for $640 mn

By Pavithra R

January 11, 2021

  • Equifax
  • United States
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Equifax, a global data, analytics, and technology company has announced signing a definitive agreement to acquire Kount, a leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven fraud prevention and identity trust, for $640 mn.

With the drive towards digital transformation increasing rapidly, businesses require new ways to establish digital identity trust in real-time to fight the rampant problem of online fraud while reducing customer friction.

The acquisition of Kount is expected to expand Equifax’s worldwide footprint in digital identity and fraud prevention solutions, helping businesses enhance customer interactions while combating fraud with the Kount Identity Trust Global Network – a risk-based authentication platform.

The Kount Identity Trust Global Network uses artificial intelligence to link trust and fraud data signals from 32 bn digital interactions, 17 bn unique devices, and 5 bn annual transactions across 200 countries and territories. With more and more signals collected and combined with Kount’s AI-driven analytic insights, it becomes more predictive, and helps prevent digital fraud and protect against account takeovers in real-time while enabling personalized customer experiences.

“As digital migration accelerates, managing authentication and online fraud while optimizing the consumer’s experience has become one of our customers’ top challenges. The acquisition of Kount will expand Equifax’s differentiated data assets to bring global businesses the information and solutions they need to establish identity trust online. Equifax is taking advantage of our strong 2020 outperformance and cash generation to make this strategic acquisition. Our data and technology cloud investments allow us to quickly and aggressively integrate new data and analytics assets like Kount into our global capabilities and bring new market-leading products and solutions to our customers,” said Mark W. Begor, CEO of Equifax. 

Identity trust determines each identity’s level of trust behind every payment, account creation, and login event. Businesses can choose the trust level and risk to block fraud in real-time and enable personalized customer experiences. 

“Together, Equifax and Kount will leverage a powerful set of differentiated data assets and advanced analytics to deliver a high performance, integrated view of both digitally-native transactions and signals and traditional offline identity fraud risk indicators while maintaining privacy and security at the highest levels. Whether you’re a bank, e-commerce provider, or a car dealer, today’s environment demands that consumers have the same – if not better- experience on their digital platform as they do on a major e-commerce retailer’s site. We are enabling businesses across industries to establish strong digital identity trust behind every interaction while facilitating new forms of online engagement with current and prospective customers,” said Sid Singh, President of United States Information Solutions (USIS) at Equifax. 

The full suite of Kount products, including Kount Command for e-commerce fraud prevention with the Ominiscore AI-driven transaction safety rating; Kount Control for account takeover prevention and digital account protection; Kount Data on Demand for advanced analytics and actionable customer insights; and Near Real-Time Chargeback protection are powered by the Identity Trust Global Network and will be integrated into the Equifax Luminate Platform. Kount employees will join the Equifax USIS business unit and continue to be based in Boise, Idaho.

“More than 9,000 brands worldwide rely on the Kount Identity Trust Global Network to protect against digital fraud while enabling personalized customer experiences and new e-commerce channels. We are excited to be able to offer Kount solutions with an expansive set of Equifax data, analytics and products. Equifax’s global reach will accelerate Kount’s international adoption, allowing us to help more businesses around the world to better protect their digital innovations and their customers against emerging threats while improving the customer experience,” said Bradley Wiskirchen, CEO of Kount. 

Established since 1899, Equifax is a global data, analytics, and technology company. It operates or has investments in 25 countries in North America, Central and South America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region.

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